


The Prince's Smith

by AgapantoBlu



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: King!Nijimura, KuroAka - Freeform, Let's go from here, M/M, Smith!Akashi, prince!Kuroko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 14:53:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7272631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgapantoBlu/pseuds/AgapantoBlu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Oi, smith!” Kagami called out, annoyed, “You have guests here!”</i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>“I don’t remember inviting anybody in, thus you’re not my guests,” the man sharply replied, without turning. “If you’re here, it means you want something from me. If you want something from me, you have no choice but to wait for me to listen.”</i></p><p> </p><p>***</p><p>Akashi is annoyed into helping the second born prince Kuroko Tetsuya and he creates for him a copy of the Medallion with the royal family emblem. Something happens along the way and before he realizes, Akashi doesn't really mind the company anymore.</p><p>That is, until one day he's alone again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Medallion's Crack

**Author's Note:**

> I like this request, really, and I loved writing this story so... here it is ^^"

**_Part I - The Medallion's Crack_ **

 

The tingling sound of the hammer against metal was the first thing that came across his mind as he entered the little shop, through no more than a dark curtain put up to look like a door. Then came the hot feeling of the air filled with steam and sparks from the burning fires. The stone walls had been blackened by the smoke and metal things of every material and shape were displayed all over the place.

The first thing he thought, instead, when he spotted the owner of the forge was the was unbelievably… _short_  to be a smith. Even if truthfully it was indeed some inches taller than he himself.

The smith gave his shirtless back to the entrance door, but Kuroko noticed the little mirror hanging in front of him, so he sure knew they were there. Not that Aomine and Kagami had done anything to be silent. He also had strange hair, of a bright red color that instinctively sent a shiver of fear down Tetsuya’s spine, and he was only wearing a strange apron of leather that covered his chest, a pair of brown breeches and some leather gloves. He kept on hammering the piece of red-hot iron he had before him as if he didn’t care about the royal insigne clearly applied on the two soldiers that were preceding Kuroko.

“Oi, smith!” Kagami called out, annoyed, “You have guests here!”

“I don’t remember inviting anybody in, thus you’re not my guests,” the man sharply replied, without turning. “If you’re here, it means you want something from me. If you want something from me, you have no choice but to wait for me to listen.”

Kuroko blinked, amazed, but it looked like he was the only one, because Aomine prevented him.

“This is a commission from the Royal Palace, smith.” His tone was dangerous like the hand he laid on his sword. “I think it would be wise for you to listen to us.”

“And it would be wise for you to listen to your own blubbering, Aomine-kun. It’s quite embarrassing.”

The smith stopped his working just for a second, to look behind his shoulder at the little figure between the giants who had just scolded one of them. The blue haired soldier complained, offended, but the guy simply ignored him and took a step closer. With a slow movement, he pulled down the hood covering his face and the bright shade of his teal hair stood out powerfully in the room filled with dark and hot colors. It seemed like all the lights were just being reflected by him and his eyes, the same tonality of a slightly deep pure lake, met the scarlet ones of the smith with not an hint of feelings in them.

“We’ll be waiting for you to finish your work, sir,” he said coldly. “It takes a great work to forge a blade and we don’t want you to lose all the time you’ve put into this one.”

The smith had already resumed working in the middle of his speech.

***

The blade that he finished, though, was one of the most beautiful Tetsuya had ever seen. Well, it was still to be completed, but it was clear how great it would be. The smith put it down with a grunt and finally turned to his three guests.

“So, what makes two gorillas and a kid barge into my shop?”

Kuroko lifted an arm, showing the other two the back of his hand, and it was enough to silence their complaints.

“Are you Akashi Seijuro?” he asked instead.

The man arched a brow, not answering. Kuroko took it as a yes and pulled out a letter with the royal mark on it. When he offered it to the man, this one stared at it indifferently for a long time before sighing and picking it.

Tetsuya let him read and in the meantime he gestured from behind his back to his men to stay calm. He knew very well they didn’t agree with him being the one to hold the negotiations, but he had been irremovable on that. He wanted to be the one to deal with the smith personally.

Akashi closed the letter carefully before slipping it back into its envelopment.

Then he tore it in dozens of little pieces and let them fall on the ground, turned and left behind a door leading to the second floor. 

It took Kuroko a second to realize, but when he did he ran after the other.

“Oi, Tets-!”

“Stay here, you two!”

***

Akashi was pissed off, to say little, so when he heard steps behind him, walking up  _his_  stairs, reaching for  _his_  house, he just stopped in the middle of his path and let the little kid slam against his back. As expected, it wasn’t that much of an impact.

“What’s so wrong with you Royal Guards?!” he growled turning, but he kind of stopped and stared when he found himself facing a little creature massaging his nose. He sighed, almost depressed. “Geez, just how young do they recruit soldiers now?”

“I’m not a soldier,” the kid retorted immediately, straightening in his all and lacking height.

Akashi crossed his arms.

“And who would you be?”

“The Prince.”

Seijuro rolled his eyes. The kid didn’t take his foolishness back, instead he pulled out a medallion from the neck of his shirt: a round golden plate, as big as one of those blue orbs, with the symbol of the royal family carved in and filled with a white paste. 

Akashi stared at it for a long moment.

“This only explains why this country is going to hell. Now get out of my shop.”

***

Akashi was sure he would have been later imprisoned and killed, when he had chased the prince out of his house, but he was starting to think it would have been a better fate than having said kid appearing out of nowhere when he least expected it.

It went to the point that one day he couldn’t hold it back anymore.

He turned into a little alley, waited for the guy to reach him and then pinned him to a wall with a knife to his throat.

“Would you quit this game already, Your Majesty?!” he hissed, but the kid’s expression didn’t change.

“I need you to do it,” Kuroko said stubbornly. “You’re the only one who could forge a new royal medallion and I absolutely need it before March.”

Akashi pressed the blade closer to the prince's throat, but he still got no reaction. Somehow, it interested him. A kid was a kid, but this one seemed to be a little stronger than expected.

He let go of the other rudely, that day, but the next week he took up the job.

***

The medallion was particularly complex to replicate, because of the perfect smoothness of the golden plate, the intricate figure of the royal phoenix, the mixture of a paste made from dust of ivory and pearls. Akashi sighed thinking about the huge mass of work it would have taken.

“I won’t be able to work on anything else for as long as I’ll have this,” he grunted. “The price will be high.”

Kuroko looked at him silently.

They were in Akashi’s smithy again, but alone this time and Tetsuya wore far more common clothes. He really looked like a simple peasant, only his hair were worth of interest now and even so it was far too easy to confuse him with his surroundings, as if he was invisibile.

Seijuro shrugged and started his work, but Kuroko didn’t leave and simply sat behind him.

***

Akashi sent him away once, twice, thrice. He reminded him he wouldn’t be able to work like that, he threatened to abandon the job.

It usually worked, but Tetsuya was always there the following day.

***

In January a delegation from a nearby kingdom came and it wouldn’t have been unusual had those men not been all dressed up for war, armed from head to toes.

Akashi observed them passing through the city with their dark and serious faces and he even followed them to the castle, where they were welcomed with a completely identical approach. He recognized the two soldiers that had been with Tetsuya the first time in two of the highest ranked generals; he saw the King, Nijimura Shuuzou, accepting the polite but stiffen greetings of the General from the other faction, a white-haired man that looked extremely suspicious; but he didn’t saw Kuroko.

***

When the prince showed up at his door, five days later, after not coming since the start of the meetings, Akashi let him stay.

The delegation left the following day, but they had far darker faces than at their arrival.

***

It was the first day of February when Seijuro went all the way to offer the prince some beer. Kuroko had accepted it, but suddenly started coughing and he, in spite of himself, couldn’t help but laugh at His Majesty's lack of alcohol tolerance.

Tetsuya glared at him that time, finally showing some emotion from above a reddened nose.

***

At the dawn of the tenth of February, a message came attached to an exhausted soldier’s neck and Akashi watched as the guards at the entrance of the palace unroped him from his horse and helped him down on the ground.

Kuroko came with a dark face, that morning.

“Kise Ryouta is young but has always been one of the most promising generals of my army,” he said sitting beside Akashi. “For him to have his legion annihilated… Someone must have betrayed us.”

Seijuro stole a glance at his face and noticed the dark shadows under his eyes.

He said nothing, but when the prince fell asleep at his side, he covered him with a blanket and came back to carve the new medallion.

***

There was a crack in the original one and when Akashi pointed it, Kuroko freaked out. He had such a funny face, that Seijuro laughed.

They agreed to never spoke of it again and to make sure not to have it on the new one.

***

At the end of February, Akashi pulled the medallion out of cold water and observed the final result.  _Perfect_.

Kuroko watched it from above his shoulder and Akashi thought he was okay, until the second he spoke.

“Is it better than the one your mother made?”

Seijuro froze, a shiver running down his spine, making his skin crawl. “How do you…?”

“My father told me everything,” the prince whispered and Akashi stood up, but never broke eye contact. “About the day he asked the medallion to be made by a princess who’d been denied her right to govern.”

Seijuro sweated cold. “Tetsuya, this isn’t funny…”

“I know.” He smiled bitterly. “It had never been since the day my grandfather poisoned yours to take the throne.”

Akashi froze.

He had known about it, obviously, and that was the biggest reason for his hatred for the actual royal family, but now it was different. Spending time with Tetsuya, he had managed to forget the cruelty his family had had to suffer. His grandfather’s humiliation and assassination, his father’s murder, his mother’s escape and struggle to support him, her death when he was only a kid and everything he had been through after that. He had managed to forget, but Tetsuya was now throwing him back in hell.

“Get out,” he hissed, but when he tried to move Kuroko grabbed his wrists and stopped him. The medallion let out a tingling sound as it bounced on the stone floor. “Get out, Tetsuya, or I swear…!”

“No!” Kuroko shook his head. He closed his eyes, depriving Akashi of the only way he had to understand him, but his voice was trembling and filled with emotions. “My father didn’t know about this ‘till when it was too late. He came to your mother and offered her the throne back, but she refused! That was why he asked her to do the medallion, so that she could earn the money to sustain the both of you. And I was told about it only the day my father died, but your mother had already passed away and it took time to find you! In the end, I could only let my brother ascend for the sake of our kingdom!”

“I don’t want to hear any of that!” Seijuro screamed, furious, but Kuroko didn’t let go of him.

“Shuuzou knows about you too, I told him after making sure you were a righteous person!” he kept on. “If you want the throne back, we’ll make sure it happens! Just…!”

“This Kingdom is doomed!”

Tetsuya jerked, shocked at a truth that he didn’t want to admit, but Akashi’s gaze was strong and painfully conscious.

“War is coming, isn’t it?” he hissed, “And our enemy has spies among us! You’ve known this would have happened since the first moment you stepped here, that was why you said you needed me to finish my work before March! The medallion was not only an excuse, you need one for yourself and one for your brother to make sure you’re both recognizable if caught or among corpses!”

Tetsuya let go of Akashi, as if he had been burned, but then his shoulders sunk. “We won’t go both to war. Someone has to stay and take care of things from here.”

Seijuro looked at Kuroko, his frail body and useless strength. It was clearly Shuuzou who’d go to his death for a Kingdom that wasn’t even his.

“This is not my problem, Tetsuya,” he muttered. “My mother refused that throne because it is stained in blood, and not only thanks to your family.”

Kuroko nodded, slowly, and they stood motionless for long moments, each one lost in his own thoughts. When Akashi opened his mouth to say something, though, Tetsuya kissed him.

***

They didn’t even know how they got upstairs or on Seijuro’s little bed; they had no idea how they fitted in or what was happening, but the smith found himself pressing his face against the mattress of straw and biting his lower lip not to scream in pain and pleasure as the prince entered him.

“Sei, forgive me.” Tetsuya murmured kissing his shoulders and nape and back as he pounded in him repeatedly, “I beg of you, forgive me, forgive me.”

Akashi didn’t answer, but deep inside he knew he had stopped blaming Tetsuya the day the prince had started following him continuously.

When he came, he called Kuroko’s name.

***

Seijuro woke up to a dull pain in his lower back, but in a comfortable position. Which wasn’t possible, because his bed was little and it should have been cramped and hot and sticky and all, but it wasn’t.

He opened his eyes to his usual loneliness, barely broken in appearance only by a little piece of paper on his pillow, just before his face. He pulled himself up on an arm, but was startled by a subtle tingling sound, so he lowered his gaze and met the sparkle of a golden medallion hanging from his neck.

He sat up properly despite the burning ache and held the jewel in his hand as he took his letter with the other. There was a crack on the symbol, the one he had been careful not to reproduce on his copy of his mother’s work.

The letter was clear in the neat hand-writing of the prince:

 

_“Dear Seijuro,_

_your mother put an imperfection on her perfect masterpiece. She did it on purpose, so that no matter how good a forger, nobody would have ever been able to copy the real thing and it wouldn’t be necessary to call an expert to find out a fake._

_If by any chance my medallion would come back home without me, my brother would make sure you know, whichever your reaction may be._

_You are right, I won't deny it. It’s true that this kingdom had laid on blood and corpses since its birth and maybe it’s only right for it to fall the same way, but please… consider being the one who’ll forge it all again from its very roots. We, my brother and I, are leaving to you the only original piece that would prove your right to everybody else._

_I love you and if you can, once more, forgive me,_

_Tetsuya.”_

 

Akashi stared at the letter for a while, then he let it fall on the sheets. He turned and hissed in pain, but pulled out all the same a little bulge from between his mattress and the wall.

As the cloth fell, sunlight reflected itself on the golden and pearly circle.

Seijuro held both the medallions, perfectly identical, with the same crack he had never known the real reason for, to his chest and leaned forward, laying his forehead on his bent knees. Then he allowed himself to sob.

***

King Shuuzou called for him barely four months later.


	2. Worth a Crown

**_Part II: Worth a Crown_ **

 

The day a messenger popped up at his forge's doorstep, Akashi just stood and looked at him. He already knew what the kid was there for.

He put on a cloak, silently grabbed the little bulge holding the twin royal medallions he had been entrusted with and then followed to the royal palace with his head high but the hood covering it.

***

The first thing he noticed getting into the throne room was the tall blue-haired general with a dark face — in more than one sense — beside the king and only after recognizing him as one of Tetsuya’s most trusted personal guards he finally took note of the crowned man before him.

Nijimura Shuuzou, King of the Teiko Empire, was far different from how Akashi had usually seen him, during public occasions. He didn’t wear important rich clothes, but a white shirt with black leather pants as if he had just come back from a ride; his face was not strong and pleasant, but in its beautifulness it still looked like it was getting wasted, pale and thin. His grey strong eyes laid tiredly on the red-haired peasant who had just walked toward him, but he didn’t lift his head from laid on his crossed hands, elbows resting on his knees. He was far from royal and definitely better than how Seijuro was expecting him to be.

At least, he was mourning his brother.

“Aomine,” the king said and the man looked surprised, but left silently under the strength filling that voice.

Seijuro stared at him wondering where his comrade was, the other who used to follow Tetsuya around a lot. Maybe he, too, had fallen in battle.

“My brother.” Akashi eyes darted back to the king. He hadn’t bowed yet, but the other didn’t seem to be waiting for him to do so. They both knew it wasn’t his place to do that. Nijimura’s eyes met him proudly, somehow still burning with the flame of fight. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing I didn’t already knew, Your Majesty.” The only way he pronounced those two words let Shuuzou knew.

Akashi was well aware of the plot that killed his grandfather and took the throne away from his mother and consequently from him too.

“What do you know about the Tokyo battle?”

Akashi heart clenched as images of Tetsuya’s departure, of the nights they had spent talking and the one they had spent loving, of those beautiful big round eyes filled his mind.

“Only that we lost,” he answered coldly. _Only that I lost._

Nijimura stretched up to slip a hand into an inner secret pocket of his shirt and Seijuro knew what was there, he knew it and wished so hard for that hand to never reach its goal, but his face stood unperturbed. The king’s hand opened up on the third copy of the royal medallion.

“This has been brought to us from an enemy delegation.” he said coldly and Akashi looked at it, at its missing crack, and couldn’t help but walk to the other man and stretched out his own hand to take it.

 _What a huge weight for such a little thing._ , he thought, but kept it for himself. He could recognize every inch of that jewel he himself had forged, but he would have thrown it away, melted and poured it on his own eyes had it meant he could have back the man who used to wear it.

“Do they demand a ransom for the corpse?” he whispered instead, wondering just how much those men wanted to rip from him and the country that was his far more than everybody could have guessed.

The pearled arabesque shone lightly and Akashi was too caught up by it to see the frown on Nijimura’s face.

“There’s no corpse, Smith Akashi.” Seijuro lifted his head and he met fired up, furious and dangerous eyes. “They demanded a ransom for my brother’s life.”

***

Akashi stormed in the herbalist office under the soldiers’ shocked eyes and he slammed the doors open, but ignored the chief medic's yells to look at the man lying on a bed.

“Is it true?!” he growled, grabbing the other by the collar of his shirt, ignoring the arm bandaged around his neck, “Answer me, damn knitted-brows!”

The red-haired soldier stared at him in shock, somehow even fear, but immediately got what he was talking about.

“We’ve been ambushed,” he admitted. “The route should have been safe, but Haizaki betrayed us. They killed almost everybody, we merely managed to cover an escape route for the prince, but that id-…he refused to leave us.”

Akashi yelled a roaring curse, so loud and furious that it made all the presents jerk, and he let the other go only to slam his arm on a little table, so hard the furniture broke. An heavy silence filled the room as he panted lowly, barely able to restrain himself from trashing the rest of the room — Hell, the rest of the palace, of the city, of that whole messed up kingdom —.

“How come you made it back?” he hissed lowly, dangerous, without even deigning his interlocutor of a look.

Kagami Taiga lowered his gaze nonetheless.

“They took us prisoners, but pulled the medallion off the prince and tied me to my horse to come back here and refer their demands.” he admitted, “They killed all other soldiers, so I was the only one left. The prince was barely really injured, they took him down by number, but I don’t know what it has been of him since then.”

Akashi cursed again.

“Can you see it now?” Seijuro turned as a low and yet dangerous voice spoke to him and Nijimura stood proud on the doorstep, tall and powerful with his eyes glinting dangerously. “The reason I want you?”

Seijuro’s eyes were just as dangerous as he met the king’s.

“Tell me when I can leave.” he only hissed.

***

They left barely three days later. He, Aomine Daiki and Kise Ryouta, another general named Murasakibara Atsushi and the archer chief-herbalist Midorima Shintarou. Whenever Akashi lifted his eyes from the ground he was burning with his only rage, he met the straight spine of Nijimura Shuuzou, riding ahead of them all.

It should have bothered him, because the man was wearing a crown that had been meant to be his; because he was in a spot that was his; and because of a thousand other things, but it didn’t. Nijimura was a good king, all considered, and cared about his people. He could have paid Tetsuya’s ransom without risking his life, but he refused to in order to protect the people from all the suffering the lack of such an amount of money would have created. And yet he wouldn’t give up on his brother either.

Seijuro knew some of him from Kuroko too, but it didn’t really matter. He had never had his eyes on the throne, his smithy and his life were enough as long as he could have stayed away from the palace that held the bloodiest part of his past. All he cared about, now, was to get Tetsuya back.

And the gods knew how far he was willing to go.

***

They got to the camp Tetsuya was supposed to lead and were welcomed by tired, empty eyes almost begging to be allowed to go back, but Seijuro could only snort at them.

Nijimura shot him a glare, as if those men could have known who was really denigrating them, but kept on walking in silence to his tent.

***

Three days later, there was blood on Akashi’s hands and face and whole body, but he didn’t care.

He slaughtered another soldier - who had approached him thinking that such a little tiny soldier fighting who knew why at the king’s side would have been an easy target - and then he engaged battle with another one, barely giving him five seconds before digging his sword in his belly, masterfully finding the tiniest weakness in his armor. He stopped with his blade a lance trying to get to his hand and then ran to the man to kill him too. Blood spurted and hit his cheek as he moved on to meet other men and others and others.

Nijimura had told him not to bother about his orders. He had an only mission that was to find the black lion insignia that was on the ransom request, get intel and then kill whoever was carrying it.

Seijuro was killing a lot, but he had yet to see that damn emblem once.

***

It took them two weeks, but things changed drastically. It was rumored that Akashi’s strength was on par with a hundred men and that he could not be defeated, that he had never been and will never be; he was absolute, it was said, and as long as he’d be on the battlefield no enemy could have defeated the Teiko army. 

Seijuro didn’t care about those voices. Aomine, Kise, Murasakibara and Midorima were doing almost as much as him, he would’ve been on their level had he not had something far more important at stake, and Nijimura himself was fighting like an untamable lion, growling and charging enemies with nothing like the usual prudence a king should have proved. Akashi sometimes wondered what if Shuuzou ever fell during the battle, what if he died. Sometimes he would look into the king’s eyes and read the answer straight from there.

To Nijimura, it didn’t matter anymore. Now there was someone else to take the throne after him.

One day, as soon as the battle was over, they had found a man, one single soldier, wearing the black lion insignia. Seijuro had barely managed to restrain himself from killing blindly, but a part of him was still rational enough to know that the simple soldier was just a messenger and probably his only chance to find Tetsuya’s whereabouts.

He grabbed the man and unceremoniously dragged him to Nijimura’s feet, there he threw him on the ground and placed his sword on the back of his neck.

“Tell the King where’s Prince Tetsuya.” he ordered, growling, and nobody questioned his choice of words.

The soldier was trembling, but bravely shut his lips closer. Seijuro raised his sword and for all the gods he would have killed him there and then had Shintarou not grabbed his wrist.

“There’s no need, nanodayo.” the green-haired herbalist said and Akashi stared at him in fury and betrayal, but the other ignored him and shared a look with the king who nodded gravely.

The smith looked coldly as the man was brought in a tent by Kise and Midorima, but his eyes widened a bit when the two men didn’t come out and suddenly a loud pained scream filled the air.

“Mido-chin knows poisons that can leave you begging for death for years.” Murasakibara said in a bored voice behind him, “And Kise-chin is not as innocent as he looks.” Akashi gave him a sceptic look, but the tall general held his gaze indifferently. “He’d been raised by bandits before they tried to sell him to a brothel, then he had to kill them all to escape. Kuro-chin took him in without second thought. We all told him it was stupid, but seems that he was right. Kise-chin’s one of the best generals in this army.”

Another scream put an end to their heavy conversation.

***

There was little a great commander could do to prevent the news from spreading when he brought an enemy prince to his castle in chains.

It took Midorima and Kise less than an hour to have the location of the castle.

***

Akashi’s gaze was firm and cold on the palace before him, but it was like he wasn’t even seeing it. His mind was focused on the weight of the sword in his hands and the breath of the white horse, Yukimaru, underneath him; his shoulders relaxed while trying his grip on his weapon, the armor on his body was light and perfectly made — by his own hands obviously — and Nijimura was before him, while all the other generals were behind.

A month had passed since the first day he was told Tetsuya was not dead. It had took them a lot to get to the inside, to the very place he was being held in, but now here they were and the gods knew how much blood Seijuro was ready to shed.

The trumpets sounded, the drums danced to the beat of Akashi’s heart and when Shuuzou ordered to charge dead on, Seijuro roared at the top of his lungs and lunged forward.

***

He took down a soldier and barely move of a little to dodge another clumsy and scared attack before slashing another while Yukimaru crushed a third under her powerful legs. The two of them, knight and horse, stepped on corpses to chase after those who tried to run from their fury and guided the men behind them straight trough the gates to the inner court of the castle as soon as Midorima’s fire projectiles burned the entrance to ashes. 

Akashi jumped down of the horse as soon as he spotted the openings to the dungeons, focused on his personal mission, but Yukimaru didn’t run. Nijimura had given her to him because the two of them had grown close during the months of fights and she was one of the best animals in the whole kingdom. She kicked other three men that were approaching to pass over her and attack Seijuro and the smith look at her, promising to make her the happiest creature in the realm if they had both make it out of there, then he turned.

He ran through the door with the sword in his hand that cut the air with dangerous whistles and hisses as he slaughtered flesh and flesh and flesh, to the point he lost count of how many he had tore down. He was like an unstoppable demon, growling and roaring as he killed people who didn’t even manage to try to strike once at him.

He head screams and yells and cursing all over, but never cared, keeping on staring ahead on the path leading him to the underground prison of the castle. When he took down the guard before the last gate he barely stopped to take the key and open, striving not to just foolishly attacking the door itself too.

He shoved wooden door open and jumped down the stairs almost, skipping a step every two, but he suddenly stopped when he found a man trying to open the gate in the wooden reticle of a little cell, crossed bar dividing in squanders the entering light and the thin figure of a man hanging from the ceiling, held up by ropes enveloping his wrists. His clothes were torn and stained in blood, but kept some lingering sense of richness; his hair were muddy and dump, definitely longer than the last time but still the same enthralling shade of pale blue; the skin looked as thin as rice-paper and would have had almost the same color if not for the bruises and scratches and wounds littering the arms and torso and legs; the head was leaning forward, chin resting against the chest, so Akashi couldn’t see him, but he didn’t need it.

“Tetsuya!” he called, shocked, and he was almost surprised when the prince head shot up at the voice calling him, his eyes — those precious, beautiful, pure azure irises meeting his — getting through the cell to touch his skin, his face, with all the tenderness of the caresses they had shared just a damn one time. His face was just as thin, his cheeks carved and his eye-socks surrounded by deep purple circles, and there were bruises and scratches and a cut split his lower lip, but still he mouthed Seijuro’s name in a low relieved breath that made the man working on the lock turning back.

When Akashi finally moved his eyes on him, they fired up in rage.

“Haizaki!” he roared, fury filling him and tightening the grip he had on his sword.

The man frowned, as if confused, but then realization softened his face in a more relaxed surprised expression.

“What do I see? Now Teiko’s King sends his smiths to save his brother in his place?” Seijuro growled, lifting his sword a bit more, and finally Shougo seemed to realize the danger was real because he stopped trying to open the cell door and drew his sword too. Still, he clicked his tongue. “Tsk, pretentious peasant.”

Akashi’s sight went red.

He shot forward with the speed of an arrow and Haizaki’s eyes widened as he barely managed to stop the fended reaching straight for his head, but he wasn’t given rest. Seijuro swung his sword restlessly but smartly, all the times almost touching the flesh and soon Shougo was cursing to keep him at bait.

The albino grabbed a chair and threw it and Akashi didn’t manage to avoid it. His arm stung painfully when it was hit at the elbow height and Haizaki charged in.

“Go to hell, lowlife!” he roared, but he noticed too late the sudden coldness in Akashi’s eyes.

Heterochromatic irises met his for a second as a sword was suddenly passed from the right to the left hand and swung forward with the same perfect aim and damn strength of the dominant arm.

Akashi watched coldly as the tip of his blade slipped perfectly in the opening between Shougo’s jaw and his neck protection. Blood spurted out in a fast and hard flux that invested the smith, covering his skin in the same red shade of his hair and eyes, painting the golden iris back to its original color.

Haizaki fell on his knees and then forward, face first beside Akashi who looked at him from on high before finally turning him on his back and meeting his eyes.

“Call for help now, sir,” he hissed staring straight at those scared and weakening irises. “Let’s see how many come to save a betrayer.” Shougo’s answer was a desperate gurgling that let even more blood out of his slashed throat and Akashi simply shrugged. “What a pity,” he only said, coldly.

He didn’t wait to see Shougo dying, there was no need, but he turned to the gate of the cell. He stared at the lock for a second before throwing a fendent on it that sent the whole thing flying, the wooden massacred, and then he finally stepped in.

The first thing he did was cutting the ropes and it was just by luck that he managed to grab Tetsuya with an arm before he fell on the ground. The weight of that thin little body was scarily close to none, but the warmth creeping under his armor from that skin made him groan in relief as he buried his face in his prince’s blue locks.

“Tetsuya,” he called again, the single name heartbreakingly desperate, “Tetsuya.”

Kuroko leaned his head against the other weakly.

“…Sei-juro…” he breathed out slowly, but Akashi heard him and an hysteric relieved laughter escaped his lips as he knelt on the ground accompanying his lover’s body down to let him rest on the floor.

“Yeah.” He moved his only free arm to held Tetsuya against his chest, in a clumsy, dirty, bloodied hug. He gulped, “I’m here.”

“Mm-mm…” Kuroko nodded, closing his eyes and nuzzling his face against the other’s insignia on the armor, “The royal emblem suits you.”

Akashi laughed nervously, even if that was he could see the lashes marking the other’s back and the blackness and dark-red shade of the rotting dried blood on what little was left of his fingernails. He had been whipped, his nails had been pulled out, who knew what else he had been trough, and the only thing he said was about the emblem he was wearing.

“I love you.” he murmured instead, moving the free hand to the other’s nape, “I love you so much.”

Again, Kuroko nodded and muttered something, a low “Love you too…” before sleep caught him and brought him away from Akashi. Again.

Seijuro sighed, but pulled the other up, turned and slung him on his shoulders. He could still hear the sounds of the battle going on out there, but the voices were mostly known once yelling orders of chasing the running enemies, so he smiled a bit and started walking out.

***

Nijimura didn’t move of an inch under the shocked glares of the Fukuda Sogo Kingdom’s King and the man cringed his teeth.

“You can’t!” he exclaimed, but Shuuzou dismissed him with a movement of his hand.

“I’m not asking for your opinion, Your Majesty,” he retorted, venomous and smirking. “I’m just informing you of what will happen to your kingdom. Well, former kingdom, to be precise, since you’ll spend the rest of your life in a prison-palace at the borders of Teiko’s capital, where I’ll be able to keep an eye out on you all the time.”

The man looked outraged and fought against the chains at his wrists for a second, but it was vain, mostly as the guards beside him held him more firmly for his arms. Still, both Akashi, beside Aomine at a side of the room, with the other generals, and Kuroko, finally standing on his feet beside his brother, brought their hands to their swords, ready to intervene.

“Who’s that?!” the man growled then, “Who are you going to give my realm to?! You plan to keep it for yourself!”

Nijimura arched a brow from the height of the throne he had just taken away from the man standing chained on his feet before him.

“For as much as I don’t have any obligation to tell you,-” he pointed out sternly, before sighing, “-I’ll give it to my smith.”

Akashi almost stumbled forward and pulled his sword out as his focus suddenly shifted from fixed on the former king to his actual one. His widened eyes met only the cold faces of the two royal brothers, who instead didn’t spare him a glance, as if what they had said was perfectly fine.

It wasn’t. He had refused to take the Teiko crown thousands of times ‘till Tetsuya’s rescue, as the was went on, crawling to the enemies’ capital, and he kept on fighting while Kuroko got better slowly. In the last battle, four months later, even the second prince’s sword stained itself in blood. And here they were now, with Tetsuya and Shuuzou doing just as it pleased them.

 _Dammit._ , he thought, but before he could say anything the man in the centre of the room preceded him.

“WHAT?!” he roared, “YOU CAN’T DISRESPECT US THAT WAY!”

Nijimura’s answer was just a rolling of his eyes.

“All considered, I don’t think I owe you anything,” he commented in a bored tone, sighing. “Still, I’m not a man to humiliate an whole country, all of its inhabitants included, so I won’t just pick my smith and put him on the throne, so I’ll give it to my younger brother. Him being of royal blood should be enough for your country’s pride to be satisfied.”

The captive king sighed almost at the same time of Akashi.

“Then, I’ll give my brother’s hand to my smith, as a prize for his bravado and the great services to my army.”

Akashi’s eyes, this time, were just the exaggerated mirror of Kuroko’s subtly-more-opened-than-usual ones as they both stared at Shuuzou, who instead laid his face on his fist and smirked, all too proud of himself as he had the other king brought away.

Seijuro’s irises were deadly and poisonous daggers that Nijimura blatantly ignore to exit the room.

***

“I’m not taking the crown, Shuuzou.” Akashi’s growl was low, but the familiar way he addressed the king with was enough to put all of Tetsuya’s faithful general tense.

Nijimura, instead, simply shrugged.

“Well, then you won’t have Tetsuya either.”

“Brother,” Kuroko intervened, shooting him a threatening glare — at least for his standards, considering his face was still as expressionless as ever — that still went ignored as Shuuzou crossed his arms and sit on his desk to look at Seijuro in satisfaction.

“It’s not my choice, Akashi,” the king said with a completely fake innocent voice. “I already declared I will give the throne to Tetsuya and that has been recognized as the only way to protect Fukuda Sogo’s pride. I can’t go back to my word and choose someone else, there would be repercussions, and you know we don’t have the way to administrate such a big area from Teiko’s capital.” He shrugged indifferently, “Sure, you, on the other hand, can refuse the marriage. It’s in your right, it has to be your prize not your punishment.”

Seijuro stared at him, annoyed. He arched a brow.

“But…?” he prompted, hearing that little betraying word in the other’s voice, and indeed Nijimura smirked.

“But” he admitted in fact, “I would have to give Tetsuya’s hand to someone else, sooner or later. You know how it is, to ensure alliances and so on…” Akashi’s eyes widened and Shuuzou’s smirk turned victorious and tempting as he kept on, “Wouldn’t it be far worse to see him married to someone else than to have a crown on your head, Akashi?”

***

Kuroko stared in silence at Seijuro’s back as he kicked all the bushes in the castle gardens, but then he sighed lowly and approached him from behind, placing an hand on his lower back to stop him.

“This won’t help,” he reminded. “And my brother was just trying to mess with you. He really wants to at least try to clean the debt our family has with you. I’ll talk to him and…”

“I’ll marry you.”

Kuroko just blinked once at Akashi irritated and kind of…pouting?…voice.

“Seijuro, you don’t have to.”

“I want to,” the smith retorted, turning to face his lover and laying his hands on the other’s chest. “I really want to. It just irritates me that he put it in a way that makes it look as if we both don’t have a choice.”

For a second, they both stood still, then Kuroko surprised the other with something completely uncharacteristically.

He laughed. Not giggles, a true laughter, loud and rich and musical and so damn beautiful, Akashi widened his eyes at it.

Tetsuya laid his forehead against the other’s and lift his chin to kiss his lips gently, almost condescending.

“Seijuro, you’re so dumb sometimes…” he muttered, the laughter still hiding in his voice and Akashi for a second tried to pout, but ended up smiling too.

In the end, Tetsuya was worth a crown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOOK AT THE COMMENTS, THERE'S A LITTLE EXTRA IN ONE OF MY REPLIES.
> 
> Nijimura is the only one who can boss Akashi around and nobody will change my mind on this.
> 
> That said, yes, another story from [my Tumblr](http://agapantoblu.tumblr.com). Come take a look, if you want; my Ask Box is open.
> 
> See you,  
> Agap

**Author's Note:**

> There's a Next Chapter so don't kill me, pretty please? ^^"


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